Regardless of programs being available, you may have no compatible software installed on your system to burn or mount .mdf files. If that is the case you can either install a software supporting the disc image format or convert the mdf image to ISO to circumvent the issue. The second solution may be more appropriate if you don’t have to work with mdf files on a regular basis.

The free software MDF to ISO looks very similar to the previously reviewed Img to iso application that I have reviewed less than a month ago. Both the application’s design and the program homepage look very similar.

MDF to Iso needs to be installed which is unfortunate as it would make a great addition to a portable tools collection. When you start the program you see a minimalistic interface where you have to select an mdf image file that you want to convert by clicking on the select button. You then pick a local directory where you want the ISO file saved to. A click on Convert start the conversion.

A real-time progress bar indicates the conversion progress. The conversion time depends on the mdf file size and the performance of the computer, specifically its processor.

The developers have tested the program only under Windows 7. It is however likely that it will work under different versions of Windows as well. Interested users can download MDF to ISO from the project homepage.

Mounting ISO images can have lots of advantages. For one, you may not need to burn an ISO to DVD if you have downloaded it from the Internet to play media or install software. Another benefit are holiday tours with your laptop. Instead of having to take your precious DVD movies or Blu-Ray movies with you, you can create ISO images instead and store them on the hard drive.

If you ever had the pleasure of going on holiday with children, you might know how media can look like on the return home (if you ever find it again that is).

Windows 7 came with capabilities to burn iso images to disc, but it lacked the ability to mount iso images natively. A recent blog post at the Building Windows 8 blog highlights that Microsoft will support iso mounting under Windows 8 natively.

ISO images are mounted either with a double-click in the new Windows Explorer or by selecting the Mount option from the actions menu.

The ISO image then becomes available as a new drive on the operating system. All of its files are then accessible directly in Windows. This behavior is similar to that of third party ISO mounting tools like ISODisk, WinCDEmu or Virtual Clone Drive.

The very same mounting options are available for virtual hard drive files as well, with the difference that they appear as hard drives and not optical drives in Windows Explorer.

Here is a video that demonstrates both the ISO and VHD mounting capabilities of Windows 8.

ISO is definitely the most used formats when it comes to virtual disk image formats. Third party tools still offer some advantages like additional disk format support that Windows 8 still does not support. (via Windows 8 To Have Native ISO Support).

A problem that some users face is that there does not seem to be a way to combine multiple ISO images on an optical disk (like a CD or DVD) or USB device.

That’s why Xboot has been created by its developer. The free application can combine multiple ISO images into one multiboot disk or USB device.

ISO images can be dragged and dropped into the main program interface. Each ISO is listed with its name, size, a category, file path and other information. The program will automatically calculate the combined file size and display it as the total size in the same program window. That’s handy to keep below the maximum storage space of CDs, DVDs or USB sticks.

An option to calculate checksums is provided which may come in handy to verify the integrity of an ISO image. ISO images can be added via the file menu as well which opens a file browser to select ISO images from connected storage devices.

The file menu contains a listing of supported ISO download locations from popular software developers. They do however link to the download page only from where the disk images have to be downloaded separately. An option to download them directly in the program would be a comfortable addition.

A click on Create ISO or Create USB creates the the multiboot ISO image or USB device. Any ISO image created this way needs to be burned to disk before it can be used.

Xboot is a helpful tool to add multiple ISO images to one multiboot ISO image or USB device. The creation process is easy to complete, only the download of the ISO images (if that is needed) is not comfortable enough. Xboot is compatible with 32-bit or 64-bit editions of Windows. The free software requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 on the computer system.

Converting those disc images into other formats is a viable option, the other to download a burning software that supports the disc format.

ISOBuddy is a lightweight program for the Windows operating system that supports conversions between a wide variety of disc image formats.

The software supports the following image formats: .gi, .iso, .nrg, .cdi, .mdf, .img, .b5i, .b6i, .pdi, .bin, .ccd and .dmg, from applications such as Alcohol 120%, CloneCD and CloneDVD and Nero. The program covers the majority of disk image formats.

ISOBuddy can convert all the disc formats mentioned above into ISO. The ISO image format is usually supported by burning software and other programs that work with image formats.

disc image

The conversion is pretty straightforward. You start by loading a supported disc image format by clicking on Open. ISOBuddy automatically displays information about the discs contents in the textarea at the bottom.

A click on the Save As button is then used to select a destination directory and name for the new iso image.

The time the conversion takes depends on a few factors including the size and type of disc image format that the user wants to convert.

ISOBuddy comes with a Burn button which did not work during our tests. It was however possible to burn the converted iso images in other burning software programs.

The disc image converter is a handy program to have as it can virtually convert the most popular image formats into the widely supported iso format. ISOBuddy is available as a free download from the DVD Ranger website. It is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system. (via Download Squad)

WinCDEmu is an Open Source software program that can mount iso images but also cue, bin, raw, img and smb network shares. It is probably the easiest to use of all the different virtual CD applications. All that the user needs to be doing after installation is to double-click a supported disk image to mount it. The mounted disk image will be available seconds later as a virtual CD drive.

WinCDEmu will however not make itself the default application for those disk image file extensions which means that the double-click will not work if the file formats are already assigned to another application on the computer. It is possible to change the behavior of the file extension so that WinCDEmu becomes the default application.

Another possibility would be to right-click the disk image and select Open With > vmnt. This will mount the disk image as well and assign a free drive letter to it.

To unmount a disk image you simply need to right-click the virtual CD drive in Windows Explorer and select Eject from the context menu. WinCDEmu is a straightforward software program to mount iso images and other disk formats. Both Windows XP and Windows Vista are supported by the software program.

The benefits of creating ISO images and mounting them in Windows might outweigh the negative aspects. The main benefit is file management. Instead of having many folders and files scattered around the hard drive there is only one ISO file containing all the files. It’s not a difference speed wise either because the files are still located on the computer’s hard drive. The only negative aspect of this procedure is the fact that no new files can be added to the ISO image. The user would have to copy all files back to the computer, add the new ones and create a new ISO image.

The Free ISO Creator makes use of an easy to use interface that basically concentrates on adding files and folders using a file browser. It is possible to set a size limit for the ISO image. The three default sizes 700 MB, 4.5 GB and 8.0 GB are available as well as an option to create a custom sized ISO image which can be easily mounted as well.

A few additional options like creating a bootable image or selecting a different file system for the ISO are available. Conversion of the files usually does not take longer than a few seconds depending on the size they occupy on the hard drive and some additional parameters like the hard drive’s speed.

The ISO images can be mounted or burned to CD or DVD afterwards.

ISODisk is another software that can create virtual CD drives. It is limited to the ISO format but can mount up to 20 images on virtual CD drives which might be interesting for users who need more than the usual 4-8 virtual drives that the other applications provide.

The interface if ISODisk is one of the cleanest in the field. All of the software’s functions can be configured in two tabs. The first tab displays the 20 possible virtual drives including their drive letters. The same window provides access to a file browser that can be used to locate an ISO image on the computer’s hard drive or local area network and mount it to one of the available drive letters.

The fact that the drive letters are displayed makes it very easy to select specific drive letters for the ISO images and provides a great overview of the currently mounted images.

The second tab contains an application to create an ISO image from a CD or DVD. A test with the original Fallout 3 DVD and the Fallout 3 Bonus CD lead to an error message. Could be a very nice and handy feature if it would be working. If you try it let me know if it works on your computer or if it throws an error message.

The biggest advantage if ISODisk is that it can mount up to 20 images in an easy to manage program interface. Support for additional image formats and a better explanation of the ISO creation are much needed features though.